Failure of psychological interventions to lower blood pressure: a randomized controlled trial.
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Previous studies have suggested that psychological interventions may be effective in reducing blood pressure. Using rigorous methodology and 24-hour monitoring of ambulatory blood pressure, we compared 2 psychological interventions with treatment using a first-line antihypertensive drug in terms of their efficacy in lowering blood pressure in patients with mild primary hypertension. METHODS: In this prospective, open-label randomized controlled trial (RCT), 65 adult patients with mild, uncomplicated hypertension were randomly assigned to receive one of the following interventions for 12 weeks: (1) pharmacotherapy with hydrochlorothiazide 12.5 titrated to 25 mg/d ; (2) individualized behavioural psychotherapy, consisting of ten 1-hour sessions of stress reduction training with a psychologist; or (3) self-help psychotherapy, consisting of a 1.5-hour session with a psychologist and then daily sessions that involved reading a self-help manual and listening to an audiotape. The primary outcome measure was mean change in ambulatory blood pressure from baseline to week 12. Resting blood pressure readings were taken in the clinic, and adverse events were recorded. RESULTS: Monitoring of ambulatory blood pressure over 24 hours showed that hydrochlorothiazide therapy significantly reduced both systolic and diastolic blood pressure relative to baseline, and that this reduction was significantly greater than that achieved with either individualized behavioural psychotherapy or self-help psychotherapy (mean reduction [standard error; SE] -11.03 [2.53] / -6.06 [1.56] mm Hg v. -0.08 [2.38] / 0.29 [1.47] mm Hg v. -1.23 [2.83] / -0.71 [1.75] mm Hg, respectively; p = 0.01). Neither form of psychological therapy significantly lowered 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure relative to baseline. CONCLUSION: For patients with primary elevated blood pressure, 2 psychological interventions did not lower 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure, whereas hydrochlorothiazide reduced blood pressure, as expected. The findings of this RCT represent an important addition to the evidence for health care practitioners and for patients seeking psychological interventions to reduce blood pressure.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.005 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.013 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".